Sectional panel partitions are commonly used in commercial, industrial and residential applications particularly for use as door closures. In the residential application, the sectional doors are commonly referred to as garage doors. Examples of such sectional doors are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,941,180 and 3,967,671. The doors are made up of individual hingedly interconnected panels which pivot relative to one another as the door is moved from its closed position to its upward out of the way open position. Various types of interconnecting designs for the panels and related hinges are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,644,725, 4,893,666, 5,002,114, 5,129,441, 5,148,850, 5,170,832 and 5,359,812 and U.K. Patent, Publication GB 2117813-A1, published Oct. 19, 1983, entitled "Connecting Wall Panels" in the name of Leonid Ostrovsky.
The concept of sectional portions for a door which may be cut to any width to provide a custom door design is described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,671. The basic design for a finger pinch proof interconnection of the panels is described in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,941,180.
Due to the popularity of this sectional door design, there is a continuing demand to provide doors of ever increasing width and height. Although the height of the door can be accommodated by using more panels in the door build up, the width of The door is limited to some extent by virtue of its own structural integrity for each door panel. As the door width increases it is understandable that the panels can only withstand certain wind loads before their structural integrity is compromised and the panels begin to bend. In this respect various steps have been taken in the past to reinforce selected panels over the door width by use of appropriate struts. The most common type of strut is the top hat in section that is a C-section having opposing depending flanges which facilitate attachment of the strut to the selected panel. There are of course other shapes for struts which have been used in reinforcing panel doors such as the Z-shaped truss and modified C-shaped truss which accommodates a reinforcing rod at its head portion. The problem with existing strut designs however is that they are not readily installed on the door panel, require extra mounting clips or the like and do not always offer the required reinforcing characteristic to permit manufacture of door widths in excess of twenty-eight feet. These prior types of struts or trusses are mounted to the rear face of door panels by retaining clips; hence, the extent of reinforcement is determined solely by the design of The strut section. Tis type of mounting allows relative movement of the strut relative to panel inner face. It is also understood that depending upon The application, the wind load and deflection requirements will vary. It is therefore important to have a strut or truss section which can be readily adapted for a variety of applications.
In accordance with this invention a strut design is provided which considerably strengthens the door panel. In addition a mounting bracket which is integral with the hinge structure may be used to secure the preferred modified Z-shaped strut or any other type of strut for the door interior to reinforce same. The strut, in accordance with an embodiment of this invention, is of relative reduced weight compared to prior structures for the same wind load and deflection capacity. The struts are more readily installed and become a structural component of the door panel. Regardless of the strut size, they are installed in the same manner to minimize thereby labor error during installation.